Absence
by Mird
Summary: Riza had only the most basic understanding of the situation. Oneshot. Happy birthday, Moonrise31!


**HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MOONRISE31! I FINALLY FINISHED YOUR ROYAI REQUEST!**

**I never write Royai, and I very rarely read it- not because I don't like the pairing, but simply because the characters don't interest me as much as some of the other characters.**

**Mainly because they're both at least ten years older than me. You know how it is.**

**I had to do a bit of research for this. I read a few fics, googled some shit, checked my facebook when I got bored. I learned some interesting things:**

**My friend Sophie thinks she's going blind, (facebook) and**

**General Grumman is Riza's grandpa (google). Weird.**

Absence

Riza had only the most basic understanding of the situation, gleaned from snippets of conversation behind closed doors and documents in her father's study that she was instructed never to touch. Letters in the mail slot from a family called Mustang, the endless ringing of the telephone, and, mostly, the sudden and undeniable sense of stress that practically radiated off her father. He always seemed to be preparing for something; he spent a lot of time tidying up and muttering to himself about anything from groceries to alchemy research to wishes for the damn phone to stop ringing.

Riza made a point of staying out of his way.

Her father was very keen on aloneness. For him, the word never shifted into "loneliness"— he always made it seem as if the absence of human contact was the most comforting thing in the world. She tried it out, now and then, by putting as much distance between herself and her father as possible. It certainly wasn't difficult in a house as big and empty as the one that they currently inhabited.

When her dad was in his study, writing lines of strange words and crossing them out again over and over in thick, black ink, she raced her shadow to the kitchen at the other end of the house (it was a trick, and she knew it; she made a point of waiting for the afternoon, so that she'd always win. She was a sore loser, and her shadow knew, so he humored her.) and made herself a sandwich in the light of the random swatches of sun from the oddly placed windows.

As she leaned against the uncluttered counter (her father wasn't particularly interested in cooking, and she saw no reason to try it out for herself. She often wondered where she'd be without peanut butter.) and thoughtfully chewed her sandwich, she soaked in the utter emptiness of the room.

The odd thing was, she never felt alone. Her house was far from silent; there were always the little background noises of the creaking wooden floors (footsteps?) and tree branches tapping at the windows (fingernails?). She focused hard on the aloneness, trying to be as alone as her father, aloner, _alonest._ It seemed like a contest to her, a contest that she had no chance of winning. She always felt some kind of presence alongside her, a presence that she liked to refer to as her ghost. But rather than being frightening, the ghost's presence comforted her, in the same way that it's absence— and, as she tried to refrain from telling herself, _her_ absence— comforted her father.

Sometimes, she went all day without talking. With a dead mother and an often absent father who seldom spoke to anyone but the Mysterious Someone at the other end of the phone line, silence came naturally.

Not speaking made her feel oddly guilty, as if her voice was being wasted. She often whispered "good night" as she went to sleep, in a tiny voice that sounded a bit like a croak. Forcing words out of her throat after a full day of not needing to felt strange, to say the least.

When she wasn't busy practicing Aloneness and Silence or diligently studying for her entry into fourth grade at the end of August ("Such a good girl," neighbor parents said. No reply from her father.), she filled her time working out the mystery of her father's preparation.

Over the course of the early summer weeks, she began to piece together a story. Cleaning out the old, unused bedroom? A guest! Dusting off beginning alchemy books instead of cracking the spines of more advanced texts? A _student_ guest! Letters postmarked from Central City? A student guest from so far away?

Riza always knew that her father was talented, and at least somewhat famous (how else to explain the colossal home?), but she had clearly misjudged the extent of these attributes, if someone was willing to travel so far, simply for a taste of his expertise.

She spent the rest of her summer, and a good portion of autumn, wondering about the heavily anticipated guest; her thoughts flitting around, bouncing between Excitement and Guarded Curiosity. She was very careful about not setting herself up for disappointment of any kind.

Clearly, though, the guest was a big deal. She couldn't see how her father would accept anything less than the best student, since he was interrupting his precious state of Aloneness. If he (the guest, she had reluctantly decided after viewing all available information, was a boy. Unfortunate, yes, but not entirely terrible.) was skilled enough to be let into her father's bubble of privacy, she doubted he would leave it just to talk to her girl who couldn't manage to be alone for even a single second. Aloneness, she knew, did wonders for one's level of concentration.

Really, the guest never had to arrive. Just expecting him was enough to make his presence real. He seemed to already be in the house, sleeping in the spare room each night. She knew it wasn't true, but who was she to judge?

So when she walked through the kitchen door after school one morning to see a black-haired boy standing at the counter, carefully examining a jar of jam, she had to rack her brain for a moment to figure out if it was real or not.

* * *

Roy blinked, as if his eyes needed time to adjust to the sight before him. A girl, eight or nine, with wide eyes and blonde hair that was almost as short as his own.

He rubbed his neck, simply for something to do. He wasn't good with kids, and sincerely hoped that Master Hawkeye didn't intend on making him babysit. He picked up the jam jar on the counter. Passed it to his other hand. Put it down. Picked it up again.

"Oh," said the girl. "Ah." She coughed.

Roy coughed back. Put down the jar.

"Um... You're our guest?" she said. Picked it up.

After staring blankly at her for a moment, Roy realized that it was meant to be a question. "I— yeah," he said with a curt nod that probably looked more like a twitch. "You're Riza, right? Master Hawkeye's daughter?" Spun the jar around in his hand.

She didn't answer. Instead, she stared back at him with wide eyes as if he was the most interesting thing she'd ever seen— a sharp contrast with her father's unfocused gaze.

"Um... I have a question," she said. "It's important."

Roy gave another small nod, prompting her to go ahead and ask. Passed the jar to his other hand.

"Your favorite color," she said. "Your _very_ favorite... I mean, what is it?"

The question caught him off guard, and he couldn't help but smile a bit.

Riza was surprised by his grin. "Is it funny?" she asked suspiciously. "It's just colors. Colors are important."

"I know, I know," he said. He put down the jar, and pushed it away— no need to fidgit. "I—"

"Colors," Riza continued in a quieter, serious voice, "tell a lot about your _personality._"

Roy lifted a single eyebrow. "Really?" he said, choosing to humor her. Best to get on good terms with her, if he was going to be sharing her house for the next few months or, most likely, years— not that staying out of her way would've been exceptionally difficult, in a house as big as the Hawkeye's. "Care to elaborate?"

Riza nodded. "If you like warm colors, then you're different than people who like cool colors."

"Different how?" he asked.

"I don't know," said Riza. "I don't know what it means. I just know it's different." She paused. "Do you _have_ a favorite color?"

Roy nodded.

"Good," said Riza. "If you don't have one, it means you're sad and boring."

Roy laughed, which surprised Riza just as much as his earlier grin.

"What's funny?"

"Nothing— I mean, it's just, I _am_ pretty boring," he admitted. "Even though I have a favorite color. Red."

"Huh," said Riza. "Maybe red means boring, too."

They both stopped talking, as if on cue. Silent, but comfortable.

"Well," said Roy. "I have to go talk to your dad, now."

"I know," Riza replied. "And I have math. Multiplication— Six times three and seven times two and nine times four and things like that."

"Eighteen, fourteen, thirty-six," Roy rattled off.

Riza stared her wide-eyed stare up at him. "You're smart," she said. "But I think I'm smarter."

Roy shook his head. "We'll see."

* * *

During Roy's long periods of study with her father, Riza took up the practice of Aloneness yet again. She had underestimated the comfort of the kitchen floor before, and it was now her favorite place in the house. The tiles were already warm with sunlight and perfect for sitting by the time she was able to run over without losing the race to her smug old shadow.

She sat there for as long as she needed, soaking her bones in the Solitude of an Empty Room.

As always, the Aloneness was disrupted by a strange almost-presence. She'd been thinking about it more and more lately, trying to explain it to herself so that someday she might be able to explain it to Roy; he seemed like the kind of person who'd understand. She knew from their first conversation that he was friendly, and had a sense of humor... And that he didn't fit her stereotype of him. She had planned the color-conversation as a trap, to see if he was a logical-alchemist who couldn't be bothered with questions about trivial things like colors.

She had, to her great delight, been wrong. Very wrong.

The almost-presence, she had decided was not a ghost, as she had previously thought. It was like someone had cut a wooden person out of a board, and then took them away, leaving her with the chipped frame of what was missing. And every now and then, it almost felt like the missing piece had somehow slipped back into its appropriate place, giving the room a strange sense of comforting fullness.

This usually happened, she noticed, when Roy was in the room.

When he sat next to her, it was as if he had become her ghost, and her ghost had become him. They were one and the same, and just being next to him gave Riza a comforting feeling, like warm blankets and mugs of hot chocolate. Her ghost was always with her, regardless of Roy's location, but she knew, somehow, that it was him, and always had been him. He was the physical form of the never-ending presence that had kept her company for as long as she could remember.

She all but worshiped him for it. It was hardly a surprise that her childish devotion to him passed on into adulthood; her promise to follow him forever wasn't an empty one.

Because who was she kidding? She didn't want to be alone.

* * *

**So anyways. I just kinda wrote this as I went, and it's been edited only very lightly.**

**A very big "thank you" to Owl City's new album, An Airplane Carried me to Bed, and Bath & Body Works Fresh Market Apple scent for forcing me to continue to write into the late hours of Tuesday night.**

**Hmm. Now that I think about it, this isn't Royai, is it? Whatever. You'll take what I give you.**


End file.
